Platform View

I was on the platform before my alarm would usually have gone off and took a much earlier train. The were far fewer people on the platform; until the last two minutes I was the only one waiting and staring down the line, hopeful of the sight of a train.  It was fascinating to be stood there listening to the morning birdsong, which turned out to be quite loud. When I looked up, it was obvious that the country-bound platforms are surrounded by many more trees than the ones for trains into Waterloo. 

Some in-office workshops had been scheduled for the next two days with a coffee moment at 08:45am and an introductory session at 9am. I arrived in Staines about 8:10am and, initially, walked to Pret to get breakfast but thought better of it when I saw the queue and realised that the office would have laid on something before our sessions begin.

This will be the first time I have met most of the people since I started this job. My usual office interactions are with my immediate team on Tuesdays. This is both exciting and intimidating at the same time. Generally, I found the day great and nice to talk to people I had never met before but, occasionally, I needed to force myself not to hide in a meeting room. My brain can’t decide if it wants to be social or anti-social. 

We started the day with a welcome from Nick, the divisional leader. And then spend a long time looking a finance forecasts. I was impressed with the level of financial transparency we were given. It was a great way to frame to day to get us to plan for success. 

The first task was to come up with a Big Idea (or a question) that might be used later in the day. My response to these kind of exercises borders on the extreme and I am not sure why: either I can be very creative and come up with something off the wall and talkable or I have a total mental block. I have no idea what triggers the different reactions. It’s another set of opposite reactions that my brain struggles with. Today was mental block kind of day. 

There was quite a spread laid on for lunch. This was followed by the first of two product-specific sessions. 

At around 5:30pm we walked to the station and took a train to Richmond. There was quite a group of us in the platform. By the time we arrived it was pouring and most of us didn’t have an umbrella. I, at least, had a hood. J was soaked. 

We started with drinks at The White Cross. Surprisingly, an extensive choice of nibbles (breads, olives, sausages, croquettes) was served.  It was surprising because at 7:30pm we head to Gaucho where we sheltered from the continuous rain by have having a steak dinner. 

There must have been about 30 of us, mainly on a long table, ordering from a group-set menu that offered the Gaucho steaks and not a great deal for vegetarians. I had decent conversations with one of the sales team from Broadcast Technologies our Head of Product Marketing. 

Service was a bit slow but that might have been expected given the size of the group and the number of individual steaks to cook. Food was done by 10-ish but the crowd didn’t appear keen to disperse. I discovered that one of our analysts lives in Wimbledon and was taking a Uber back. She kindly offered me a lift, and I was happy to get to Wimbledon Station. It meant we were the first to leave so I had to squeeze out past a lot of people tightly packed into a corner of the restaurant. Fortunately, the driver drove from Richmond to Wimbledon via Raynes Park and I hopped out by the station.